Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone

 

Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone  It’s not warm when she’s away 

(i paid for those teeth for 3 years)

Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone  And she’s always gone too long anytime  She goes away 

Wonder this time where she’s gone  Wonder if she’s gone to stay 

(because sometimes you just gotta make fishy lip faces)

Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone  And this house just ain’t a home  Anytime she goes away 

And I know, I know, I know, I know, I know  I know, I know, I know, I know, I know 

(tiaras are important.  we have travel tiaras for road trips, birthday tiaras, ’round the house tiaras)

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know  I know, I know I know, I know, I know 

Hey I’ll leave the young thing alone  But ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone 

(i put this one in just because she looks like a little hippy.  wouldn’t she have been a cute hippy?)

Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone  Only darkness everyday 

Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone 

(sometimes you just feel like screaming)

And this house just ain’t no home 

Anytime she goes away  Anytime she goes away 

(yes, my haircolor/length changes daily, why did you ask?  oh, and the very cute bike i’m riding in front of my house, well, it’s my MOM’S.  i mess with her and call it MINE)

Anytime she goes away  Anytime she goes away

 

 

 

My dolly is moving to socal in 3 days!!!  She’s the sunshine in my house.  I don’t know what I’ll do without her!!!!

when she was four i was singing her to sleep one night.  she covered my mouth and said “mommy, you can just talk it.”  i’ve been practicing, ‘ain’t no sunshine’ all week.  walking around the house sortofsinging it, mostly it just sounds like i’m in pain. i decided i needed a theme song, even though i’m not the most gifted singer (three note range, all of them off key) i AM IN PAIN.  so everyone else gets to be as well!  

:cries a river

 

i love notcamping!

this weekend we took the kids and a few friends up to lake camanchee reservoir with some friends of ours and went NOTcamping.  i borrowed my little sister’s r.v.  and had running water, a toilet, a shower, could wash dishes, cook on a stove, an oven, did i mention the shower… a BED, AIR CONDITIONING – just a few little luxuries.  the first time we went camping with these friends it was last summer.  we got home and i still felt human.  i was thinking, that was NOT camping.  then i went to the list of things i love an added this:

I so love not camping.

this is connor, just as he’s landing a flip, before he biffs it.  i need a faster camera.  or some skills.  skills would be nice. 

here are my two boys.  we were playing spades.  we had a fun time.  i still got game!!  

and connor again, wearing my stylin’ hat. 

and on the way home….  sometimes you just have to put your head on the back of the headrest! today i snapped a few pics of kendal and michael.  they are so cute together! 

she would kill me if i put the camping pics up so i figure the day after is fine… 

 

isn’t this one cute? 

i hope you guys had a great weekend! i had fun with my kids. it was fun to have all 3 of them together.  noooo, they didn’t bicker at all, why did you ask?

 

 

 

 

i know this has NOTHING to do with NOTcamping, but last week i made a goofy bag that i learned about from anna  she did a tutorial, teaching us how to make those darling bags she made for her cousins last year, and for cami when she went to visit her… you should check out the tutorial... it wasn’t too bad (if you leave out the part that one end of my zipper/fabric sewn to zipper resembles something my cat (may she rest in peace) would have barfed up!)

sorry it’s blurry.  please refer to beginning of post. i either need a new camera, or some skills.

playing with blocks

those legless birds and the cone o’ flowers are my next two blocks for my FOF that i’m working on.  i have to run back down to the quilt shop and see if robin can give me a refresher embroidery course on the stitch i’m supposed to do for the leg. i can’t remember the angles!  there’s a joke in there somewhere, but i’ll leave it alone. 

i’m heading back to bed. 4 hours of sleep.  got up to help my son get breakfast before he went to work on the farm this morning.  his last day of summer school was wednesday so he’s working two jobs again until fall semester starts.  this is excellent for my fig consumption opportunities, explained in this post.  i’m so glad he’s back at the farm for lots of reasons, but one is that i’m DYING FOR FIGS.  i’m waiting for the second crop to ripen.  early in summer you get a little crop, then the second crop comes in on the old wood.  we’re waiting for that crop.  not very patiently.  in fact, not patiently at all. 

today is cleaning day.  i won’t be showing you my dust bunnies, not even if you show me yours!!  wish me luck!!

My husband had a best friend named Ron. My husband would buy a cinnamon roll for breakfast at school every day. Ron would wait, and then steal the middle and eat it, every day. Every time. This is a true story. Don’tcha just hate Ron?

spousal unit and my youngest went river rafting/hiking/biking/somethingelseing i can’t remember.  I made cinnamon rolls yesterday morning at the crack of dawn for the group to have before they left the church parking lot.  they aren’t thimbleanna’s auntie annie’s sweet rolls, they are my mom’s recipe. i’m going to try hers next though, because if hers are better, i want to make THOSE instead of mine!!  

then today my friend melissa came over and brought that baby we love  over with her and we made 3 batches of marinara, 2 batches of stewed tomatoes and melissa made 4 batches of raspberry freezer jam !  i would have taken photos but my canning jars are probably getting a bit boring. 

hi, i canned this, and this and this and this.  i have to go clean my kitchen.  it’s U-G-L-Y.  tomorrow i’m cleaning, and doing a little work for someone and then starting to plan a bday dinner for sunday for my eldest.  he turns 23 on sunday!  oh my.  he’s older than when i had him now.  :sigh  they grow up so fast.  

i’ll post a pic of him after his bday if i get any good ones. he just got out of the marines after 4 yrs. – and we get to have him home on his birthday!!!!

pesto vs. bitty bird

dear blog friend (metal finger covering who will remain nameless) that i have,

have you tried pesto yet? summer is well underway. i was over at a neighbor’s house yesterday and happened upon bitty bird, sitting there on the shelf. he was cute. we hung out for a few hours.

it would sort of be the equivalent of taking a bite of a sandwich that had a light coating of pesto on one side. i just thought i’d put that out there. and now…. you might want to say something to me like this: “i was at a nice deli yesterday and i had them spread a little bit of pesto on one side of my chicken sandwich and now i’m hooked i tell you, positively hooked!

so… do you actually OWN a bitty bird? i mean, does he reside in your home? just curious. because i hung out with him yesterday. we’re like this (crosses two fingers together). if you won’t try some, perhaps bitty bird will. if you see a photo of him with some green stuff smeared across his face – it’s not entirely your fault. i probably should have had a bit more self-control.

perhaps i can elicit the assistance of a fellow-californian that is heading your way to coerce you into pesto consumption. SSSHHHAAARRROONNNN, Anna thinks she doesn’t like pesto!

okay, i’m off to make cinnamon rolls. the boys are going camping/rafting for a few days.

ooh oooh..  penny is having a monster of a giveaway don’t go sign up for it though, because i’d like to have more of a chance of winning.  you can look at it though, and pray for me to win, but don’t enter!!!!!!!!!!!!

Saucy Saucy Cha Cha

Elisa and i went to the garden.  picked various things, but mostly TOMATOES!!! 

So… I brought them home, blanched them, peeled them, squeezed their guts out, put them into a pot that i borrowed from kjersti, large pot owner extraordinaire,  - added a bunch o’ stuff, and marinara was born!!

i’m going to try really hard to make some once a week until halloween when the tomatoes leave the planet so i’ll have enough for the whole year.

i especially like these jars!  i don’t know how the rest of you get jars with your last name on them…. you don’t?  oh, sorry to hear that! these are Classico pasta sauce jars that i saved. i figured since they said “mason” on them, we could use them as canning jars, and we can!!!!

Happy Anniversary Baby, Got You On My Mind

Last night was our 19th wedding anniversary.  Okay, I just have to say, I’m a lucky girl and my husband is wonderful.  I’d marry him all over again.   went to Shutter’s Brasserie for dinner. I had called the owner to let him know we were coming in and that it was our anniversary.  He just kept bringing wonderful food to our table!  We didn’t order from the menu, he just kept bringing us food he knew we would like.  He started us with Girly Tomato Soup, Chilled with Creme Fraiche. Oh my.  It was amazing.  Then a wild mushroom ravioli that he made with sauteed spinach in a reduction sauce – amazing (I need some new adjectives other than amazing and wonderful.)  I had some risotto dish with grilled prawns and floydie got the new york steak.  the best part was that at the end he brought out a special dessert he had made just for us.  last time we were in floyd had told scottie that he loved fried ice cream and the man made it ahead of time (has to be frozen twice) because he knew we were coming in.  it was beautiful!  Here, i’ll show you: 

isn’t it gorgeous?  

and on another note, i finished my 9 “square in square” blocks for my flight of fancy quilt. 

and yes, i took them on the edge of my bathtub.  you can make fun of me later. or now for that matter. 

 

My blocks, onions, tomatoes and the rooster!

here are my first three blocks for the quilt i’m taking a class on.  somehow, i’m going to get robin to make 87 million feet of 1/8″ bias for the center block. i don’t know how yet, but i’ll figure it out!!!  

when i got peaches on friday i also got some heirloom tomatoes.  we made a heirloom tomato and cucumber salad to go with dinner on saturday but here they are before we consumed them. 

On Friday I went to the farm.  No, i didn’t go crazy, i visited a farm…  (sorry, i tried to capitalize there for a minute, but it slows me down waaaaaaaay too much. my little brain doesn’t hold the thoughts that long and it takes me too long to type if i’m typing CAPS).

Friday at the farm: 

these onions were just harvested and they are on the ground, under the eucalyptus trees.  i thought they looked great! doesn’t it make you want to make onion soup or something??  (stock up your pantry..)

and here is some garlic as well.  

there are tons of wild chickens at the farm and i’ve seen two roosters there.  one of them will let you get close.  i happened upon the one that won’t.  i followed him around for about ten minutes, hoping no one would see me chasing a rooster around with my camera.  he stopped for a nanosecond under a FIG tree and i got this shot. 

isnt he gorgeous? that fig tree isn’t half bad either, but then again,i don’t know too many people who have crushes on fig trees.

my enormously large dog

I would like to introduce my dog.  Her name is Baloo, like the bear in “junglebook”.  She’s 1/2 great dane and half mastiff.  We got her from my friend Peter who lives up in the Pacific Northwest. She’s five years old. I love love love her.  We have to keep the front door deadbolted because she can open it.  Then she stands there, or stands on the porch.  This is her one day when I got home, just standing in the doorway.

 

I had a great day today. I got up early, canned 35 jars of peaches, then went and took a quilting class. I finished my first two blocks. My instructor was a bit of a perfectionist and had us get to where we were making exact 1/4″ seams, bless her heart.  I got it on the 2nd block and was then allowed to proceed.  I learned some great stuff, had fun with Robin and Stephanie and finally got to start on the quilt I’ve been waiting to start on FFOOOORRREEEVVVVEEERRRR (think sandlot, the movie).  

Then I got home an we had dinnerguests, a nice dinner and now i’m going to go and work on my 3rd block.

how are you? i’m just PEACHY!!!!!

yeah, so my little cohort, melissa and i went and got some SUNCREST peaches.  joy.  just pure, unadulterated, JOY.  

then…. i whipped up a little cobbler

we ate it all that night… melissa, trevor, my spousal unit and offpring (and I) ate it… and then i made another one this morning and drove over and dropped it off at Tairwa farms for them to enjoy.  i took a photo of that rooster i love over there, but melissa is going to fix it for me (okay, so it wasn’t that great, since she has to fix it… but the ROOSTER is great, just not my photography abilities-but hey, i have other abilities.)

then… melissa and i put a few into jars

and then… i had to go run errands!!! and now make dinner… and hang out with my fam.  hope you had a great day too.